By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

“It’s out of the oven!”

So proclaims nationally renowned food writer Kim O’Donnel of her new book “The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook,” published this month, and new this week on West Seattle shelves (at Click! Design That Fits [WSB sponsor]).

O’Donnel is a relatively recent West Seattle transplant – one year so far on Alki, after a couple years elsewhere in Seattle following a move from “the other Washington,” where she was a longtime food writer for the Washington Post, for which she also hosted Web chats and produced a series of online cooking videos long before such things were commonplace.

“The other Washington” also is where she was when we spoke by phone earlier this week, as she started a national tour for “The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook” (the tour will of course bring her back here for readings/signings, too), which suggests one meatless menu for every week of the year.

Right off the top, we should mention, O’Donnel is not a vegetarian (as you’ll hear her explain in the promotional video clip atop this story).

She insists she’s not trying to convert people, either. “I was on a radio show on Sunday morning, and one of the hosts was really ribbing me for this idea, ‘how are you gonna convince me?’ I’m not really interested in convincing people – just opening things up.”

It didn’t take long for O’Donnel to encounter another skeptic. The morning we spoke, “I did a photo shoot with a former Washington Post colleague, who was skeptical about the sandwich I proposed we do for a recipe for the shoot – pan-fried tempeh … It’s gotten high marks with my recipe testers. I said, take my word for it.” And of course, it was a hit. She notes that the recipes are all meant, not necessarily to look and feel like meet, but to “feel as substantial and satisfying.”

Her new book is “really designed for the meat eater … It’s structured by menu, rather than course category. We decided to do away with the (standard indexing of) soup, main dish, appetizer, and instead create menus. I know the most recalcitrant meat eaters are going to need a helping hand – there’s a different menu to try for every week of the year, if you wanted to put ‘one day off [from meat] a week for a year’ into practice.”

One audience she thinks will appreciate the book – “folks in mixed-diet relationships,” an up-and-coming trend she’s noticed over the past five years or so. It’s not just a case of one partner eats meat and the other doesn’t – perhaps, O’Donnel suggests, a family might have “kids who are waking up at 15 and saying, ‘I don’t want to eat meat any more’.”

There’s always room for change. Including – changing where you live. When she and her husband, political journalist Russ Walker, moved to Seattle two years ago, O’Donnel says, they lived in Eastlake. But then she told him, “‘We’re in a part of the country where we might actually be able to afford living on the water – let’s check it out!'” So about a year ago, they moved to Alki. “I totally love it, so thrilled to be living in that part of the city … it’s a very charmed life. I still can’t get over the fact that we can have seals for neighbors, and be downtown in 12 minutes.”

She won’t get to see the seals for a few more weeks, though, as she is on tour to promote “The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook.” Through the 28th, she’s in the D.C. area, and then heading to Philadelphia – her home town – and New York, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, before heading westward. Once O’Donnel gets back home, her schedule includes a reception and signing event at Click! Design That Fits’ new home in The Junction (the move is still a week or so away) during the November West Seattle Art Walk on November 11th, plus an appearance at the Admiral Metropolitan Market (WSB sponsor) on December 17th. (Her full schedule is here.)